Page 12 of Dirty Ginger

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After Amelia arrived back home, the lingering tension of meeting Luka followed her. She skipped the house and went straight for the brewery, needing to figure out a plan on getting it back into shape. With every step she took, she kept waiting for her heart to squeeze tight, missing Luka, to feel more broken, raw, anything, but she only felt glad to keep Beckett from facing jail time. And something about that kept rubbing her wrong. She’d spent nearly three years with Luka, why wasn’t she trying to understand why he ended things so cruelly? Why didn’t she want an explanation from him? Why wasn’t she ready to let him have it and to feel the pain he’d put her through? She amounted this to getting over the worst of her heartbreak in the tropics. But there was this little part of her heart that told her there was a good chance that Luka should have been in her rearview mirror for a long time, and maybe the reason she couldn’t hate him for what he’d done was because, beyond the embarrassment and the sadness that the life she dreamed up was over, maybe the life she thought she had with Luka wasn’t real to begin with.

When she reached for the first tank, she noted the pungent smell in the brewery had improved greatly with the barn doors left open for most of the morning. The dust begrudgingly hadn’t improved. First thing first, the tanks needed cleaning.

She only got one step into the barn, when from behind her, Beckett snapped, “What did you do?”

Whirling around, she found Beckett’s face tight and muscles straining. The one bad thing about small towns was word got around fast, and obviously, he’d learned about her meeting Luka today. Trying to play dumb to avoid the conversation she didn’t want to have, she turned back to her work. “I’m about to clean my tanks,” she said.

His voice tightened. “That is not the answer to my question, and you know it.”

She refused to look back, hearing the anger in his low voice, and not wanting to see it on his face. “I did what had to be done,” she told him. To keep her hands busy, she reached for a cloth and began dusting along the stairs that led up to the top of the tank.

“That payment was mine to make, Amelia, not yours,” he said, his voice barely controlled. “If you had asked me, I would have told you that I rejected his offer to pay him because I don’t want the prick to fix his nose. He should wear that shame for the rest of his life.”

She’d never missed pina coladas on the beach more than she did right now. With a heavy sigh, she turned to face Beckett, spotting the vein in the middle of his head bulging like it would burst any second. Of course, she had expected him to show up, but she wasn’t expecting his anger. But it didn’t matter, she wanted this behind her. For good. “What is bothering you the most here, Beckett: that I paid to fix your problem or that Luka will get his nose fixed?”

Beckett arched an eyebrow. “Do I need to pick one? Can’t both piss me off equally?”

A laugh nearly escaped her, but nothing about any of this was funny. She knew all too well that fate was not in her hands. The death of her parents taught her that. But she didn’t need to sit by and let fate decide everything without fighting back either. “What did you expect me to do?” she countered, glaring at him. “Let you go to jail for me?”

To anyone else, he’d look intimidating with his legs planted wide and his nostrils flaring, but she heard the warmth in his voice behind the tightness as he said, “I expect for you to come and talk to me about it, instead of giving that bastard your money.”

Yeah, well, she could play the intimidating part too. She flatted her lips, placing her hands on her hips. “You never would have agreed to pay him if I’d asked you.”

“You’re damn right I wouldn’t have,” he growled, his face reddening.

Heat flushed through her body as she ground her teeth, turning away from him. God, he’d always been a hard wall that she’d beat her head against. But she realized in this moment that her arguments were so different with Beckett than they were with Luka. Luka got upset when she wouldn’t change something about herself for him. Beckett only ever got upset when he felt she was treated wrongly. Her stomach roiled in awareness that she’d forgotten what it was like to have someone support her. “Well, it’s done and over and now we can all put this behind us and move on.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Amelia. Nothing is behind us,” he said slowly and coldly, flicking her gaze to him. His look was all knowing. “You can’t simply brush this under a rug and hope it all goes away.”

“Why not?” she asked, throwing up in hands in frustration. “Why can’t I pay Luka off and end this entire shitshow? What is the harm in that?”

Beckett’s expression softened. A smidgen. “The harm is that you caved when you shouldn’t have.”

Her chest heaved, breathing become rough and rapid. “I caved to protect you.”

A gust of wind swept up dirt up around him as he crossed his arms, his brows knotting. “I didn’t ask you to do that. If I had wanted to pay the asshole off, I would have fucking paid him.”

“Yeah, right.” She snorted. “You have too much pride for that.”

“This has nothing to do with pride,” he snapped, reaching into his back pocket. “This was my problem. Not yours.” He offered her a check. “I won’t pay him, but I will pay you. Take it.”

“No,” she said, firmly. “My problem, not yours.”

His eyes slowly narrowed into slits. “Amelia.”

Her gut began to boil. She’d had about enough of men today. She tossed the cloth down on the stairs and closed the distance between them, getting into his space. “I get you’re pissed, really I do, but can’t you just say thank you and be done with it?”

A laughter with an edge escaped him. “Do tell me what I should be thanking you for.”

She was pushing him. She knew it. She also wasn’t about to back down. “For making this all go away. For ensuring that you wouldn’t get jail time. For protecting you like you protected me when your fist hit Luka’s face.”

A pause. His gaze flared. “I will never thank you for that.”

She stared him down, and he glared right back for many, many seconds. Years they’d been together, and from those years, she knew that he wouldn’t give, not when it came to protecting someone he cared about. The silence drudged on until she threw her hands up. “Honestly, Beckett, you’ll have to explain this to me. Why are you so mad?”

Intensity simmered on his face as he closed the distance between them, bringing the hard wall of his chest nearly against hers. She felt the heat emanating off him and was shocked when her nipples puckered in response to him being this close. Tingles raced through her all the way to the tips of her toes as he said, tightly, “I’m mad about all of it. I’m mad that you left for college, and I was too much of a fucking mess to go with you. I’m mad that you met that fucker, and he got his damn claws into you. I’m mad that instead of you being blissfully happy, I watched your heart shatter before my eyes.” His chin dipped, bringing his mouth near inches from hers, his warm breath brushing across her face. “I’m mad that instead of that prick suffering, he has your fucking money to fix his stupid face. And I’m mad that I have no way to stop any of it.”

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